We loved our time in (and below) the Bighorn Mountains

We loved our time in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming! Even though the calendar indicated it was July, it was 53 degrees when we started our day. We should just stay up in these mountains, but several people have told us how good the Tongue River Canyon Trail was--even though it is below the mountains at a much lower elevation.

So we've been convinced that we must do it--especially because several of the trail heads of the hikes we had planned to do were closed because of mud from all the rain and melting snow in the mountains. Yesterday we drove down the mountain heading west, and today we drove down the mountain to the east. We made the 32-mile drive down the spiraling Highway 14 to the town of Dayton. We left our cool elevation of over 8,000 feet to come down to Dayton's warm elevation of less than 4,000 feet. That meant our temperatures in the 50s were now temperatures in the 70's. Then we had a five mile drive on a narrow gravel road, where we just held our breath and hoped we didn't meet another vehicle.

We had lovely views from the very beginning of the trail, as we started down the canyon carved by the Tongue River.

A local that was hiking the trail with her two dogs told us that she had never seen the Tongue River this high and powerful before. It was showing off for a couple of wanderers.

We immediately started hiking uphill along the river that was so loud that we had to yell to speak to each other even though we were side-by-side. It was like being beside a thundering waterfall, but the sound followed us as we followed the river.

It was about 2.5 miles to our destination--much like the hike we took the night before. Last night we didn't take a picture for 2.5 miles. But the Tongue River Canyon had us taking pictures of the ever-changing views. We loved finding unique rock structures, like the one in the middle of the picture below that looked like a window. We had wandered into another of God's wonders!

While we came to hike between the canyon walls, some people came to climb the canyon walls. We spotted this guy in the bright turquoise shirt that was doing a Spiderman up that wall. 

We saw three different groups climbing these vertical walls as we hiked close by. You probably can't see what Denisa was staring up to see in the picture below. 

But if we zoom in, you can see more rock climbers dangling from ropes like the one below.

The middle mile of this hike was a little boring as we left the river. So Denisa took pictures of the Tongue River flowers. While we have seen this flower domesticated in gardens, we don't often see bee balm wild on the trail.

According to the Alltrails app, the end of the trail was at a camp site near the river. That didn't seem like a destination to us, so we scrambled over some rocks and vines and made our way to the side of this roaring river.

The trail continued past the river, even though it was noticeably narrower and had less traffic. We added another quarter-mile to our hike, straight up from the river. There we found an expansive mountain meadow.

We sat on a rock and ate a snack while we enjoyed the 360-degree views around us.

We seldom take many pictures on the way back from an out-and-back trail. But the views changed when we hiked the opposite direction. We would say that the Tongue River Trail was worth the drive down to this lower elevations to see some of its canyon and river views.

When a fellow hiker warned us about a rattle snake 500 feet down the trail, Denisa handed the good camera to Mark. He's better at spotting and shooting snakes.

Mark found him curled around a bush, watching us intently and rattling as we neared. This was not the type of wildlife we wanted to see on the trail!

The weather was warming up, and we were sweating for the first time in a while. After we ate a sandwich from the Dayton Mercantile, we were ready to head back up into the mountains. It's not a fast drive, as the speed limit was 40 miles per hour for the first 12 up-hill miles. On the way home, we had hoped to kayak on the only lake along Highway 14. But the weather was foggy and stormy as we climbed into the higher elevation. Steamboat Point (that we had hiked a couple days ago) was completely shrouded in clouds, and we obviously wouldn't want to be on the water when this storm came through. But then we reached the tallest point on Highway 14, and we were suddenly surrounded by blue skies. Of course we would kayak Sibley Lake now!

We got the kayak inflated and took off on a circle around the lake.

We rowed past the wooden boardwalk and boat dock where people can enjoy the lake and do some fishing.

The winds were calm, and it was a perfect temperature. We have been blessed by another of God's wonders!

The winds picked up when we were on the far side of the lake. While the skies were blue when we started, the clouds rolled in while we were rowing. We could even see that ominous gray cloud peaking over the trees, as the wind started blowing in earnest. The waves were getting bigger as we hurried to make it back to the dock.

By the time we had the boat dried and put away, clouds covered much of the lake. It didn't even look like the same lake, much less the same day at Sibley Lake.

It was raining by the time we got back to our campground and got our fourth piece of pie purchased at the restaurant. Being a holiday week, it looks like the pie baker might be on vacation. We were disappointed in the peach pie that we had for a snack on our fourth night.

We went to the lodge to check emails and send some texts, and then we decided to drive down the road for a little evening wildlife hunting. We left our campground at 8:00 p.m. and drove west down Highway 14A. This had been our best place to see wildlife, and we found the following wildlife during a 25-minute drive of 5.5 miles. We had been finding so many animals that we lost track of the numbers. So Denisa started keeping a notebook in the pickup, making tally marks when we spot another animal. The tallied numbers for this 5.5-mile drive were:

Moose - 10

After four days in this area, we learned not to take a picture of every moose. But some of them were just too close and too easy that we had to snap a quick picture.

Deer - 29  We don't even stop to take pictures of deer around here. Denisa just tallied the count and we kept scanning the horizon for different animals.

While we were used to seeing large herds of elk, this evening we spotted two bull elk grazing near the highway. They both sported nice racks that would make walking through a forest very tricky.

Maybe that's why they were grazing out in the open meadow. While they stood for a couple pictures, we could tell they were more skittish than the bull moose that don't seem to care if a car stops close to their habitat.

We also spotted a large herd of female elk and their calves. Mark counted 151 in the herd that stretched across the hill in front of us. While it was almost impossible to take a good picture of a herd of elk in the distance, we still tried.

With that herd, plus the two bull elk we saw earlier, we'll add to the tally:  Elk - 153

This night we also had one more category to tally:  Rainbow - 1 

We have wandered into many of God's wonders today!

We found an open spot along the highway, and decided to wait there to see the sunset. In a forested area, it's hard to find an opening to the sky. We took advantage of our open parking spot and settled in to see more of God's handiwork. We have found that it's difficult to get a good weather forecast for this high mountain area. These mountain peaks make weather systems of their own. But we were supposed to get some rain and storms over the next 24 hours, and the clouds indicated that system was on its way.

We watched the ending of another beautiful day in Wyoming. We loved our time in (and below) the Bighorn Mountains! We have been blessed!